


The Great Lieutenant

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 8 explaination, Cursed Child, F/M, Gen, Mudblood Prejudice, Prejudice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 13:42:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7686787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellatrix Lestrange was always destined for greatness. Born into a great, noble family, her experiences would mold her into the dark, manic servant of the Dark Lord upon his rise to power.  She would experience love and loss, death and childbirth, all leading up to her valiant demise.</p><p>These are the events that marked her life, as she grew from a child in a stone-cold home to the maniac the Wizarding World grew to fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**1961**

**Black Manor**

It began with whispers; nothing more. The Black family were not the first to hear of these hushed tales, but they were certainly not the last. Dark magic. Murder. Lies. Blood traitors. A man who was acutely aware of the infection that Mudbloods brought to a world of high standing and magical wealth. The proud family agreed with the understanding that Mudbloods had no place in their society, although they did not realize the toll that this war would soon take upon their family and countless others. The sisters would whisper among themselves, little Bella Black taunting her youngest sister ‘Cissy that they would come and get her because she was secretly a filthy, adopted mudblood. 

Narcissa grew cross.

“You should stop saying I’m adopted,” she said. “That’s a foolish thing to say.”

“I bet you’re really a mudblood.”

“Shut up, Bella! I am _not._ ”

“ _Muuuudblooooood…”_

“I hope mum and dad lock you away someday. You belong in a crazy house!”

“Both of you _shut up_ already! Before I tell mum and dad!” Andromeda snapped. Small and frail, the middle daughter curled up on the lavish, velvet couch that adorned their large living room. She couldn’t stand their fighting, especially since Bellatrix was usually the one who started it.

“You’ll get kicked out of Hogwarts for _sure_ ,” Narcissa said. “You’ll go next year and they’ll hate you so much that they’ll kick you right off the train.”

“That’s what you think. I bet you’re secretly from a dirty muggle family and _you_ won’t even be allowed to go. They’ll tell you that mum and dad aren’t your real family and send you home and you’ll never get to do magic again.”

Narcissa began to cry.

“You’re the worst. I hate you.”

She stomped away as Bellatrix laughed.

“You’re so mean to her,” Andromeda mumbled.

“Shut up, ‘Dromeda. I’m only teasing her.”

“No one would be stupid enough to believe you anyway.”

“Well _she_ is”

“Whatever. You’re crazy anyway.”

Her sister rolled her eyes and gave her a nasty grin.

“Bellatrix.”

The commanding voice of Cygnus Black startled the two girls into silence. Their father stood in the door way, glaring at the eldest daughter sternly. Beside him, teary-eyed Narcissa scowled at Bellatrix, leaning her head on the mahogany doorframe as tears dripped down her pale cheeks.

“That is a very mean thing to say of your sister, Bella.”

“Well—“

“You will listen when you are spoken to.”

Bellatrix held her tongue.

“That is a very degrading thing to call somebody from your family. Do you know what could happen if a hateful rumor such as that were to spread to other families?”

Bellatrix shook her head.

“We could be kicked out of our home. Treated like dogs. Being a mudblood is nothing to joke about. Apologize to your sister.”

“I’m _sorry,_ ‘Cissy,” Bellatrix grumbled.

“You ought to be proud to be a Black daughter. See that you act like it.”

And with that, he left the room, Narcissa trailing close behind him.

“It’s not nice to joke about stuff like that,” Andromeda continued after their father had left, “Especially now that people are saying Mudbloods are being killed in their homes. Isn’t it horrible?”

“Mudbloods aren’t real wizards,” Bellatrix said. “Everyone knows that.”

“But they can still do magic, can’t they?”

“Their magic isn’t _pure,_ ” Bellatrix explained. “Dad says so all the time, you dummy. They’re trying to let Muggles into our world and take over. Don’t be stupid.”

“I just don’t think they should die,” Andromeda mumbled, but Bellatrix ignored her.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"...I’m not to get mixed up with the wrong sort,” she recited. “I’m not to make a fool of myself. I’m to make the Slytherin House and the Black family proud.”_

**1962**

**Platform 9 ¾**

The train had arrived and Platform 9 and ¾ was bustling. Students, young and old alike, were waving goodbye to their families as they hurried aboard the Hogwarts Express. For Bellatrix Lestrange, this would be her first year attending the great school. Now, standing eagerly upon the platform, she was adorned in brand-new robes and supplies, complete with a beautiful, dark-brown hunter owl. Bellatrix would have looked stunning… if she had bothered to fix her hair. It stuck out in all angles, only held together by a large clip atop her head that her mother practically forced into her hair as they were leaving the house.

The family certainly gave off an air of regality. Narcissa stood dutifully beside her mother, wearing a long, navy blue skirt and black button-up blouse. Her blonde hair tumbled past her shoulders, nearly down to her waist. Her mother, sharp-eyed and stiff in her stature, glared at Bellatrix as they made sure her bags were packed and ready for her departure.

“Do you remember what I told you, Bellatrix?” Cygnus knelt down to be at eye-level with the eldest sister.

“Yeah. I’m not to get mixed up with the wrong sort,” she recited. “I’m not to make a fool of myself. I’m to make the Slytherin House and the Black family proud.”

“Good. I’m proud of you, Bella.”

She gave him a quick hug, before approaching her mother.

“I really wish you would fix your hair,” Druella sighed. “It took all my might just to get you to put that pin in your hair and you still look like a convict of Askaban.”

“Well I happen to _like_ it this way.”

“You look an utter wreck! Goodness, Bellatrix, you give me all this grief just after your great-aunt Bevina dies and—“

“Well _you_ look like a dirty, rotten _goblin_.”

“That is enough Bellatix!” her father bellowed.

Her mother looking bewildered, Bellatrix laughed and gave her mother a quick hug before moving to Andromeda. Frail as ever, people often mistook Andromeda for the youngest of the sisters. She was dressed in a plain, dark purple dress that reached her ankles, with shiny, buckled flats that she had received as a birthday present.

“Don’t be a dope, okay?”

The middle sister rolled her eyes and gave Bellatrix the obligatory hug.

Narcissa was trying not to pout.

“I want to go, too.”

“Well, you can’t. Now give me a hug.”

The two sisters hugged, but Narcissa was scowling.

Saying their last farewells, Bellatrix ran off to the train, lugging her suitcases with her, black skirt and cloak flapping madly behind her. She felt on top of the world, so happy that she felt she could sprout wings and fly without so much as a single spell.

She was filled with such confidence, that finding out she might have to sit alone on the train was like being plunged into ice water. She pictured herself having so many friends that she wouldn’t be able to count them on two hands. But as the children ran around her, scrambling to find seats, she suddenly felt extremely isolated. Suddenly, the train seemed very, very small. She began sweating.

“I want to sit with someone,” she announced, forcing back the tremble in her voice. Nobody seemed to hear her.

“I said, _I want to sit with someone!”_

Half the train seemed to go quiet at her frightening demand, but nobody seemed ready to offer their seat. The ones that could hear her only seemed terrified.

She locked eyes with a girl sitting beside her. “Fine I’ll just sit with you,” she said quickly. The girl quickly moved aside as Bellatrix took her seat.

“Oh—oh um, hi—“, the girl stammered. Bellatrix looked stiffly away from her. Anxiety reeling, Bellatrix folded her hands in her lap and didn’t say a word as the train began to slowly pull out of the station.

“I’m Adelaide. Adelaide Wessel.”

Bellatrix still didn’t say anything.

“W-what’s your name?”

“Bellatrix Black,” she said quickly. She began picking at her fingernails. Adelaide was small and dark-skinned, her hair braided into two, short braids that fell past her shoulders. Unlike Bellatrix’s robes, which were so new they practically shone, hers were mustier and had several years of wear upon them.

“Oh. It’s, um, nice to meet you. I’m a first year; I’m hoping to be sorted into Ravenclaw. I hear that’s the house for smart people, right? I did some reading and it seems like people in Ravenclaw—“

“I’m a Slytherin,” Bellatrix interrupted.

“Oh, so you’ve already been to Hogwarts?”

“No.”

“The how do you—“

“My whole _family_ was in Slytherin. I would be a disgrace if I were anything else.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You know, I really hope there aren’t any Mudbloods on the train,” Bellatrix said, still refusing to look Adelaide in the eye. She remembered her father’s words. “I can’t sit with Mudbloods, you know.”

Adelaide shrugged and turned her gaze to the window. “I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”

“They aren’t real witches and wizards you know,” Bellatrix continued. “They’re gross and dirty and their magic isn’t even real. They just pretend that they’re better than people that come from _actual_ magical families. They’re plotting against us to let Muggles take control of the wizarding world, did you know that?” Bellatrix said this all very fast.

“Maybe,” she murmured.

The two girls spend the rest of the train ride in silence. By the time the train pulled into Hogwarts, Bellatrix’s cuticles were bleeding.

As the students slowly made their way into the castle, Bellatrix noticed Adelaide was running past her as quickly as she could, tears streaming down her thin cheeks.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"She already felt like she belonged here, that this was right. In that instant, Bellatrix knew this was exactly what she was meant to be."_

**1962**

**Hogwarts**

“Gryffindor!”

The yellow-haired boy named Batholomew threw a fist into the air, practically falling off the chair and running to the Gryffindor table where he was met with hugs and applause. Bellatrix pushed a thick strand of hair behind her ear for the third time and sniffed.

“Alice Banks!”

A girl with curly, black hair timidly sat upon the stool. It took several moments, before the hat announced her as Gryffindor as well.

“Bellatrix Black!”

Grinning from ear-to ear, Bellatrix launched herself out of her seat, nearly knocking the stool over as she scrambled to sit. The hat was placed on her head, but it hardly touched her messy hair before the hat announced that she would be in Slytherin. Overjoyed, all of the girl’s former anxieties were washed away in an instant as she proudly walked over to join the Slytherin table. She already felt like she belonged here, that this was _right._  In that instant, Bellatrix knew this was exactly what she was meant to be.

She paid close attention to the next few names called—Frank Longbottom, a Gryffindor. There was another boy named Augustus Patil who was put into Slytherin. Several more were placed into Hufflepuff after, followed by another Gryffindor and two Ravenclaw.

“Hey,” Bellatrix nudged an older boy sitting beside her. “Slytherin’s the best house, isn’t it?”

He grinned. “Yeah, ‘course it is. You happy you got Slytherin, kiddo?”

“Yup. My whole family was in Slytherin.”

“That’s good to hear. A lot of folks think we can be kinda uptight sometimes, but we just follow our nature. We were born to be great. That's the beauty of Slytherin house.”

She smiled and nodded. “When do we learn Dark Arts stuff?”

The boy laughed. “We don’t, unfortunately. Wouldn’t that be cool though?”

She scowled. “I think that’s stupid.”

“That makes two of us, kid. But between you and me, I hear there are Dark Arts books in the Restricted Section of the library. Real creepy stuff, you know? But they aren’t easy to get. You have to have a special note from a professor to read any of that.”

“Have you?”

“Me? No way. No professor here likes me enough to ever let me read anything that’s actually _worth_ reading. Same with my sister, they all hate her too.”

“Well, _I_ don’t hate you.”

He laughed. “Thanks, kid. And welcome to Hogwarts.”

She smiled.

“Adelaide Wessel!”

Bellatrix turned around at the mention of the girl’s name on the train. With her arms held stiffly to her sides, Adelaide marched to the hat and promptly sat upon the stool, closing her eyes. The hat was placed on her head, and for several moments, was very quiet.

“Slytherin!” the hat boomed. The girl’s eyes flew open in surprise as the Slytherin table erupted into applause. It was clear that it was _not_ what she was expecting.

Bellatrix glared at her as the girl shuffled over and sat at the opposite end of the table. She didn’t trust Adelaide, even though she couldn’t place why. Bellatrix decided it would be best to stay away from her…she was probably what her father meant by “the wrong sort”, even though she was a Slytherin. Bellatrix huffed. She would be the last person to let someone like Adelaide get in her way.

Two more students were sorted after her, one in Ravenclaw, the other in Hufflepuff. That was the end of the ceremony.

“Hey Bellatrix, you coming?” the boy asked as the students began filing out of the cafeteria. A girl was with him, chuckling as Bellatrix hurried to catch up.

“Yeah,” she panted. “Hey, what’s your name by the way?”

“I’m Amycus Carrow,” he said proudly. “And this is my sister Alecto. We’re both prefects of Slytherin house, so you better behave.”

Bellatrix grinned.


End file.
